this is a pretty big
deal for a republican = signaling marijuana indeed has medical merit despite
DEA saying it has none & should be Schedule One drug = because this is one case
of it being safe for a 2 yr old to ingest.
Vivian Wilson suffers from Dravet Syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy that her parents want to treat with medical marijuana.
& Dr. Sanjay Gupta CNN Chief
Medical Investigator has a documentary called #Weed that covers how it's
improvement devastating condition & quality of life of a 5 yr old military
daughter
Show a 5-year-old girl about to eat food sprinkled with oil drops of marijuana on cable TV, and you're bound to get the nation talking.
The topic of weed buzzed across the country this week, not because of the usual debate surrounding medical marijuana laws, but as a result of a one hour-long documentary featuring this little girl and one medical reporter's change in opinion.
CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta shocked many when he publicly admitted he was wrong about his previous stance on the medicinal benefits of weed and retracted views he expressed in his 2009 Time magazine article,
"Why I Would Vote No on Pot."
"I am here to apologize," Gupta wrote in a
CNN op-ed published Aug. 8. "I apologize because I didn't look hard enough, until now."
On Sunday, CNN aired an accompanying documentary, "Weed," which Gupta spent a year investigating by traveling to pot farms in Colorado and hospitals in Israel, where he studied the medicinal benefits for cancer patients. The program emphasized the underresearched healing effects of marijuana and had viewers glued to their TVs as they watched 5-year-old Charlotte Figi, now age 6, consume the drug to treat her seizures.
While marijuana is classified as a
schedule 1 substance – which the Drug Enforcement Agency defines as "drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse" – it's the only one that has reduced Charlotte's seizures from 300 a month to two or three.
NJ Governor Chris Christie Backs Easing Access To Kids' Medical Marijuana
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie agreed Friday to give chronically ill children easier access to medical marijuana, but he was unwilling to go as far as state lawmakers wanted.
The Republican governor conditionally vetoed a bill on the topic, saying in the document, "Parents, and not government regulators, are best suited to decide how to care for their children."
He said he agreed with provisions that would allow production of ingestible forms of pot at state-approved dispensaries and to allow dispensaries to grow more than three strains of the drug. But he struck a part of the bill that would have dropped a requirement that a psychiatrist and pediatrician sign off before children are allowed medical marijuana. He said he wanted to keep in some safeguards for young patients.
The bill now goes back to the Legislature. If lawmakers make the changes Christie requested, it will become law. It was not immediately clear when lawmakers may take it up, but the state Senate does have a voting session scheduled for Monday.
Sen. Nick Scutari, one of the sponsors of the bill, said he's pleased that children would be given access to edible marijuana in strains appropriate for their medical needs, but concerned that psychiatric review is an unnecessary hurdle for parents. He said he will review the conditional veto before discussing with fellow lawmakers how to proceed.
Like the 19 other states that allow medical marijuana, New Jersey lets children use it. But unlike all but a few, the state law and regulations currently in place — considered perhaps the most stringent among states that allow medical pot at all — have additional hurdles for young patients.
They must have a pediatrician and psychiatrist sign off on their use. And if one of those doctors is not registered with the state medicinal cannabis program, they would need a third physician to recommend the drug.
The bill to ease access sparked a new round of debate between Christie and medical marijuana advocates, many of whom doubt that he wants the state's fledgling pot-for-patients program to succeed.
It attracted broader attention this week when parent Brian Wilson confronted the governor during a campaign stop in a diner. Wilson believes his 2-year-old daughter, Vivian, would benefit by using a certain form and strain of pot for Dravet syndrome, a rare and sometimes deadly form of epilepsy.
In a moment captured on video that made news shows and websites, Wilson told the governor, "Please don't let my daughter die."
Christie, who has raised concerns that it could be adults using pot recommended for their children, told him, "I know you think it's simple, but it's not," during their brief exchange.
Wilson and his wife, Meghan, who live in Scotch Plains, said in a statement Friday that they are disappointed Christie "decided to make it so difficult for parents, who are already enduring tremendous pain and heartache, to get approval for such a safe and simple medication."
They said it's not fair that other drugs can be prescribed for children without additional doctors signing off.
The changes Christie is willing to make could enable children like Vivian to get the form and strain of pot that could help them by lifting limits on how many strains of marijuana dispensaries can grow and by allowing ingestible forms that kids could take without smoking.
Currently, New Jersey allows dispensaries to grown only three strains of pot, and that has made it unlikely that the kind Vivian's family says she needs will be made available. Brian Wilson said other children with Dravet have benefited from a form high in a compound known as CBD and low in THC, the chemical that gets pot users high. Wilson said the drug can work not only to relieve pain or build up an appetite — two things medical pot is often used for — but as a medicine to treat Dravet.
New Hampshire, Delaware and Illinois have multiple-doctor requirements for kids to get pot, said Chris Goldstein, a marijuana activist who is on the board of the Coalition for Medical Marijuana of New Jersey. "This is something that originated in New Jersey and is likely to be copied in other states," he said.
Roseanne Scotti, New Jersey director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said lifting the limit on how many strains of marijuana plants New Jersey growers can produce will be helpful for other patients because it will allow "real innovation and better options." Medical marijuana activists say different types of the drug work for different conditions and patients.
New Jersey now has just one operating legal dispensary with a second expected to open in September.
So if #weed is safe for a 2 yr old and a 5 yr old what about adults over 21? Should adults be able to police themselves and have the freedom to enjoy the benefits of marijuana recreationally?
This weekend in Seattle, WA where marijuana is legal for adults to smoke recreationally
Seattle police cure munchies with Doritos at city's Hempfest - CNN ...
www.cnn.com/2013/08/18/us/seattle-police-hempfest-doritos-giveaway/?...
1 day ago - Seattle police handed out bags of Doritos to Hempfest attendees to educate them about marijuana laws.
From: John
French
To: "friends@foxnews.com"
Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 9:27
AM
Subject: + _ Re: question
for Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson
Dear Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson, sure if that's all somebody does is smoke pot all day long
and nothing else they are going to be lazy, lethargic & unproductive just
the same as if someone sits on their couch all day and all night and does nothing
but watch FNC, eating Lays chips & drinking Pepsi just waiting to feel good
from Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson on TV = they will be even bigger unproductive, unsuccessful losers than people "pot heads" like Steve
Jobs, Paul McCartney, Michael Phelps, Justin Timberlake, Ashton Kutcher ...
Yes, as you just pointed out on air, authoritarians trying to be cool w/ pot & not tools come
across lame. But also authoritarians who try and be 0 tolerance tough-guy meat
heads about pot, well, they are tools. Wake-up, Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson = Things have already changed and you are in the dark ages - stuck in the luck and the losing smoke-screen called the war on pot.
From: John
French
To: "friends@foxnews.com"
Sent: Sunday, August 18, 2013 8:59
AM
Subject: question for
Tucker
